Ten Million Fireflies
by Chloe Kompton
Summary: AU. Starts with Weechester. The YED decides it is in his best interests to raise his 'special children' himself. Rated T for safety. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

_You would not believe your eyes, if ten million fireflies, lit up the world as I fell asleep…_

It was another ordinary summer day—well, ordinary for Dean and Sam Winchester, anyway. Their father was away on a hunt, as per the norm, and the young boys were staying in a hotel, again, as per the norm. Since it was summer and they didn't have school to attend, Dean was letting his little brother stay up late. But it was after nine, which was almost too late for Dean to keep his eyes open and definitely too late for Sammy.

"Come on, Sam," Dean wheedled, "it's time to go to sleep."

"But Dean!" the excited six-year-old said. He had his head ducked through a small opening in the curtains that covered the one window in the motel, staring out into the parking lot. "You have to look at this!"

Dean yawned, then sighed. "Fine. But _then_ will you go to sleep?" At Sam's vigorous nodding, Dean made his way over to the window. Sam stepped aside, his small face lit up with excitement, and Dean poked his head through the opening in the window. "Whoa."

The motel parking lot was filled with lightning bugs, all with their lights flickering on and off in a steady rhythm.

"Do you see all the fireflies?" Sam asked, still excited. "There's gotta be ten million out there! Dean, can we go out and try to catch some? Please? We never get to catch fireflies!"

And Dean turned to face his little brother, turned to tell him that no, they can't do that, because Dad said not to leave the motel and besides, that many fireflies in a parking lot can't be normal, but one look at his little brother's hopeful face and he changed his mind. Dad wouldn't have to know and besides, they never _do_ get to catch fireflies. Not even once.

"Okay, Sammy," Dean relented. "But only for a little bit. And you can't tell Dad."

"Yay!" Sam cheered. "You're the best big brother EVER!" He was jumping up and down in place, like a little jumping bean, and Dean grinned at him.

"Yeah, yeah, I am pretty great. We're gonna need a jar for all these fireflies we're gonna get."

After much searching, the boys tracked down a pickle jar to capture the bugs in. Dean washed it out, and then stuck the key to the room carefully in his pocket. Sam was waiting for him at the door, bouncing in place again and oozing with excess energy. "Are we ready to go now? Can I hold the jar? Can I hold a firefly? Are we gonna let them go again after we catch them? If we aren't, can I use them as a nightlight?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and we have to let them go or they'll die," Dean told him. Sam looked slightly disappointed about not getting a new nightlight, but held his hands out for the jar, which his brother placed in his hands. For a while, they ran around, catching fireflies like normal kids. And after a while, they got tired like normal kids, and lay down in the grass next to the parking lot, watching the stars and the lightning bugs.

"It's time to let them go, Sammy," Dean said when he was sure it had to be after ten.

Sam gave him a pleading look. "Please can't we keep them? Just for one night?" But Dean shook his head.

"They have to go home. To their families. Here," he said, and handed his little brother the glowing jar again. "You can let them go."

Sam took the jar, and his face was illuminated by it when he smiled up at his older brother.. "Thanks, Dean."

"For what?" he asked.

"For the best night ever," Sam said earnestly, and Dean grinned at him as he turned and ran out to the middle of the parking lot. He saw Sam twist the jar open and the fireflies flew out, and then—

There was a man there, right in front of Sam, and he had just appeared out of nothing. Dean gasped and yelled Sam's name as he ran towards him, saw the man look at him with eerie yellow eyes, saw Sam frozen in place with fear, kept running and was almost there when the man raised his hand and it felt like he ran into a brick wall, only there was nothing there.

"Oomph!" Dean grunted as he was knocked to the ground and the wind was knocked out of him. When he pulled himself to his feet, the man was gone, and so was Sammy. The only signs of life were the fireflies, with their lights still steadily blinking on and off. But even they were beginning to disperse now.

"Sammy!" Dean yelled, running to the spot where his little brother had been. The jar was broken, smashed to bits on the asphalt. "Sam!" He whirled around, hoping that maybe Sammy would be behind him, and that he had just imagined the man, but…

No.

Sam was gone. Dean didn't know where he had been taken to, but he knew the yellow eyes. The thing that killed his mom. It had taken his mom from him, and he didn't know why, but now it had taken Sammy. And as the last of the fireflies left the parking lot, ten-year-old Dean Winchester sank to his knees, put his head in his hands, and began to sob.


	2. Chapter 2

Sam Winchester was terrified.

He had been with his brother in a parking lot, and then a strange man with creepy yellow eyes had appeared while he was looking up at the fireflies. Sam had heard Dean scream his name, and he had wanted to turn to go to him, but he couldn't move. He had been completely immobilized by…he wasn't sure. He remembered that he hadn't been particularly afraid.

But now he could move, and he was terrified.

"Hello?" Sam called out cautiously. "Is there anybody there?" He stood up and examined his surroundings for the first time, then frowned. He was in what looked like the old west, from those old movies Dean liked to watch. There was a windmill overhead, spinning in the breeze. But the old west wasn't real…

"Ouch!" Sam said out loud after pinching himself to make sure this wasn't a dream. It hurt, so it wasn't. But where was he?

"Who are you?" a small, shaky voice asked from behind him. With a gasp, Sam turned to face the owner of the voice and saw a boy around his age. He was wearing a way-too-big military jacket, and he had tears streaking down his face.

"My name's Sam," Sam said. "Who are you? Are you okay?"

Sam was only six, but his father was already training him and his brother to hunt, although Sam didn't know it. He just thought his dad was tough, strong and tough, and wanted him and Dean to be strong and tough too. Sam wouldn't cry because his dad wouldn't cry. He would figure out what was going on and try to help, and so would Sam.

"I'm Jake," the other kid said, wiping at his eyes with a sleeve. "I thought I was alone, and I was scared, because I was just with my mom and then this man appeared and I wanted to move but I couldn't and—"

"That's what happened to me!" Sam said excitedly.

"It is?" Jake asked, and when Sam nodded, he said, "Do you know where we are?"

Sam frowned, shaking his head. "I was gonna ask you that."

Jake looked like he wanted to ask another question, but at that moment they heard another voice yelling "Hello?" The two boys looked at each other, then ran towards it.

All in all, there were seven: Sam and Jake, two girls named Ava and Lily, a pale boy named Max, and two identical boys named Andrew and Ansem that swore they had never seen each other in their lives.

"I don't get it," Ava said. She had her arms crossed and her lower lip jutted out in a pout. "How come we're here? I don't know you. Unless" —she furrowed her brow at Jake—"Unless you were in my kindergarten class. I'm in first grade now."

"I'm in first grade too," Jake said, "but I don't know who you are."

It turned out that they were all in first grade.

"Who's oldest?" Ansem asked, sounding a little defensive. "I'm almost the youngest in my class, 'cept for Tommy Fisher. He's little."

"My birthday's May second," Sam said. "I don't know who's the youngest in my class. I move a lot."

"That's my birthday too!" everyone else said, all at once, and Sam frowned.

"Are we all here 'cause we've got the same birthday?"

"My mom says that lots of people have the same birthday," Lily said. "Alexa Davis in my class has my birthday too. So that can't be it."

"It's not," said a gravelly voice from behind the small group. Sam gasped, along with everyone else, and spun around to see the yellow-eyed man standing there, looking at them with a fond expression on his face. Sam wanted to say something, tell him to take him back to Dean, but he was too scared.

"Who are you?" Jake demanded, and Sam looked at the crybaby with surprise. "Why are we here? Take us home!"

The man looked unconcerned with Jake's demand. He gave him a fond smile. "Jake, Jake, Jake. You're here because you're _special_. You all are!"

Special? Sam was special, and he knew it. His whole family was, actually. With the way they moved around and how they didn't have a mom. Was everyone else here the same way?

"I'm not special," Max said, disproving Sam's theory.

The man chuckled and shook his head. "You are, Max. You don't know it yet, but you are. At least—" he paused—"you're _going_ to be."

Sam and the others glanced at each other uncertainly. No one spoke, and after a minute, the yellow-eyed man rolled his eyes. "Do any of you know what demons are?"

Lily nodded. "They're bad. They're like the devil."

"Not bad," the man told her sharply. "Not bad at all. You're all part demon. That's why you're here. And you're not bad, are you?"

"No," Lily said, shaking her head back and forth. "I can't be a demon!"

Sam frowned. His family was not religious, and he didn't believe in demons. Except for on cartoon shows.

"Well, you are," said the man, "and you'd better get used to it. Get used to this." He gestured around at the Western-esque town around them. "Because I'm going to train you. You're going to be great, all of you." The edge had left his voice, and he was back to sounding proud. "I'm going to be just like your father."

"I have a father," Sam said. "He's gonna be looking for me. My brother too." His voice cracked in the word 'brother', and the yellow-eyed man gave him a look of disgust.

"They aren't looking for you, Sammy. They've given up already."

"They wouldn't," Sam said. He shook his head back and forth quickly. He didn't really understand what was happening. He had been kidnapped, he thought, along with a bunch of other kids that all had his birthday. He didn't know why. But what he _did_ know was that his family would never stop searching for him. They would come and take him home.

"Poor Sammy," the man said, and now his voice was filled with false kindness that could only fool a child. "I'll have to show you." He stepped forward and placed his hand on Sam's forehead before he could react, and then suddenly they were in the backseat of Sam's father's car. Dean was in the front, right next to their dad.

"Dean!" Sam cried, but he didn't answer. The yellow-eyed man made a _tsk, tsk_ sound.

"They can't hear you, Sammy," he said. "We're just here to watch, not to interfere."

So Sam watched.

"Dad," Dean said after a minute, "now that Sam's gone, can I have his stuff? Like his army men?"

"Sure thing," John Winchester told his oldest son. "Life's going to be better for both of us now that Sam's gone. No more extra mouth to feed. And did I ever tell you it was his fault your mother's dead?"

"No kidding?" Dean asked, sounding shocked. "I hate Sam. He ruins everything."

"But we won't have to deal with him anymore," John said, smiling at his oldest son, who smiled back.

And then the scene faded away and they were back in the town. The other children were staring at them, wide-eyed. Sam was in shock, and he vaguely noticed he had tears trailing down his cheeks. The yellow-eyed man gave him a look filled with fake sympathy.

"You see, Sam? They're GLAD you're gone! They're not even LOOKING for you! All of you!" And the demon turned to the other children. "Your families don't _care_ about you. Not like I do. And you're all staying here anyway, so you might as well be happy about it."

Sam closed his eyes, trying to stop his tears. That conversation between his father and brother had hurt him more than he had thought anything possibly could. And then after the tears had slowed, he nodded his head slowly up and down.

"When do we start?"


	3. Chapter 3

It had been almost two years since Sam had disappeared from that parking lot, and Dean and John Winchester were still searching for him.

There had been other jobs, sure, but the main thing to do was find Sam. They had spoken to families of other children who were kidnapped that day, kidnapped and never found. They had uncovered similarities between some of them, like the birthdays and the time they disappeared. Some even reported seeing a man disappearing with their child.

But they had never found Sam.

And Dean knew it was all his fault. If he hadn't taken Sam outside, hadn't let him get so far across the parking lot from him, then maybe he could have protected him. Maybe…

And his dad knew it was all his fault too. Sometimes, when he got really frustrated, he'd yell at Dean and tell him so. It happened less than it used to. At the beginning, when they had first started searching for Sam, Dean had been the subject of a tongue-lashing several times daily. But even when he wasn't yelling, Dean knew his father hated him. He could see it in his eyes when he looked at him. Sam had been his father's favorite. The thing that reminded him most of Mary. And now he was gone, lost, maybe even dead.

But they would find him.

They _had_ to find him.

And when they did, they would murder the demon that stole him away from them. John had acquired the Colt through a stroke of luck and blackmail, and they had tested it.

It worked.

* * *

Sam had been having strange dreams recently. He knew they weren't visions, because visions were real. And these weren't, because they were about his fami—

Not his family. The visions were about the people that had used to protect him looking for him. But they weren't true, because Azazel, the man who was like his father, had shown him that they didn't care. That they were happier without him.

Sam shook his head, then rolled out of the cot he slept in. He had grown both skills with his demonic abilities and muscles in the two years he had been with his new family. He was learning, and one day, he was going to be a general in an army, one that was going to take over the world that had kicked him and thrown him on the ground. He didn't owe it anything.

Outside, it was quiet. Far too quiet. Sam put a hand on the gun that he kept holstered to his side at all times, then pulled it out. But he was too late. With a yell, Jake launched at him from above, knocking the gun out of his hands. Jake punched and kicked him for a bit. Sam didn't stand a chance, and finally, he yelled, "I'm dead!"

Jake grinned and rolled off him onto the dirt-covered ground. His army jacket, the one that had been his father's until he had been killed in a skirmish, was still far too big for him, but he was growing into it. It was also covered in dust.

"Getting sloppy, Winchester," he smirked. "Better be careful, or when it's time to fight to be the general, I'm gonna kick your ass."

"Dream on, Talley," Sam retorted. "It won't happen again."

Then the boys heard a click. They looked up, and on the roof of the building where Jake had been stood Ava, aiming a gun at their heads.

"Bang," she said. "You're both dead."

This was what they did all day, training. The children were all growing tougher and more skilled. One day, they would truly be a force to be reckoned with. None of them could be any happier.

But still, sometimes Sam found himself missing his old life, when he had had a brother to catch fireflies with. No one here could be trusted long enough to even ask, not that there were any fireflies in this ghost town. He knew his old life was in the past. Even if he had a chance to take it back, he wouldn't.

He didn't want to lose out on being general because Jake practiced more than him, after all.

* * *

"I've got a lead," John Winchester said with considerable excitement as he burst into the motel room. Dean looked up, quickly switching off the _Casa Erotica_ movie that had been playing on the TV.

"About Sam?"

"Of course about Sam," his father told him, sounding exasperated that he even had to confirm that. "There's been a few sightings of a man fitting the description of the demon that took Sam in a town, buying enough food every few weeks to feed an army. No one knows who he is. Now, he might just be an empty vessel, but we're still gonna check it out."

"But no one's seen Sam in the town?" Dean asked, trying to hide his disappointment.

John shook his head. "There's a ghost town just a little ways away from it. The demon could be hiding him there."

Dean stood up. "When do we leave?"

* * *

Sam's dreams, _visions_, were getting stronger. He could see his biological father and brother trying to come into the town. He could see them being blocked by the invisible wall that surrounded it, then finding a way in. And he could see John shooting Azazel, the man Sam considered his father.

And it disturbed him. He could not allow that to happen.

So one night, after he woke up sweaty from the same dream he'd been having for three nights, he slipped off his cot and out of the building he slept in. Outside, it was cool, a far cry from the nasty humidity during the day and inside the buildings.

"Hello?" he whispered into the night, watching the shadows illuminated by the moon and the stars. "Azazel?"

"Sam," he replied immediately from behind him. Sam turned to look at him, used to his sudden appearances and disappearances by now. Azazel studied his face. "You're all sweaty. What's wrong?"

"It…it's my…family," Sam said in a rushed whisper, stumbling over the last word. "They…they're coming to find me."

Azazel's face turned into a disapproving frown. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy. You know that's not going to happen."

"But it is!" Sam protested. "I've been having visions…"

"Visions?" Azazel asked sharply.

Sam nodded his head up and down as fast as he could. "Where they come, and they get in somehow, I don't know how, and they have this gun and then…and then they kill you."

Sam was scared. He didn't want anything to happen to Azazel, and he didn't want to leave. Azazel looked concerned, but he just nodded. "Thank you, Sam. You've been very helpful."

And then they heard someone calling Sam's name. A young voice.

"Dean," Sam whispered. "Dean…"

"Go back to your cot," Azazel ordered. "I'll take care of this."

"Don't hurt Dean!" Sam pleaded.

Azazel was about to tell him that he would in fact be hurting Dean, but instead he said, "Just remember that he didn't even think twice about you until now. He's happier without you." A fresh tear ran down Sam's cheek, and he wiped it away with his hand. He didn't cry, not anymore. So he nodded. Azazel pointed to Sam's building. "Go."

So Sam went.

* * *

Dean was still calling for Sam when he and John found themselves shoved up against separate trees. The Colt clattered out of John's hand.

"Damn it!" he swore as Azazel entered the clearing, smiling. He reached down, picked up the Colt, and inspected it, then stuck it in the holster on his belt.

"Hello, Winchesters," he said. "That dear boy you've been trying so hard to rescue informed me that you'd be here."

"He wouldn't!" Dean said. "You're a liar."

Azazel chuckled. "No, Dean, I'm not. I'm telling the truth." And as Dean shook his head violently back and forth, John looked at Azazel with pleading eyes.

"Please," he said. "Please. Just give me my son back. You've already taken so much…"

And Azazel's chuckle grew into a full-fledged laugh. "Sam doesn't _want_ to come back! And even if he did, I wouldn't let him. You Winchesters are getting to be quite a bother, you know that?" He glanced at John, moved his hand sharply to the right, and Dean heard a sickening crack. He gave his father a desperate look, and saw his head dangling at an angle, eyes dead.

"No!" Dean screamed, thrashing as much as he could to get free. "No!"

"Yes," Azazel chuckled. "And you'll be next, boy."

He lifted his hand, but as he was about to turn it, a small but forceful voice from behind him said, "No."

Dean stared at his little brother like he'd seen an alien. Sam was taller, more muscular, now.

"Sammy," he said with relief, and his voice cracked. "Sam…"

But Sam didn't pay Dean any attention. He stared at Azazel, who was giving him an exasperated look. "Just send him back to where he was. Don't kill him. Please."

"I can't do that, Sam," Azazel said, still giving him a look. "He knows where we are now. He'll be back."

"We can go somewhere else!" Sam said. "Just please, don't…"

"So you did tell him," Dean said, his voice sounding foreign even to his own ears. "You told him we were coming. It…it's your fault Dad's dead."

"He was going to kill Azazel," Sam said, looking at the deceased body of John Winchester without expression. "I couldn't let him."

"You…you're not…what's happened to you, Sammy?" Dean asked, horrified. He'd lost his father and his little brother, all in one day.

"I got stronger," Sam answered, looking him in the eyes for the first time. "I don't need you anymore. I don't need anyone."

"Except your little demon buddy," Dean snapped. "Can't you see that isn't right? Family comes first, Sam!"

"This is where my family is now," Sam said. "They're teaching me to be a general. For an army." Dean opened his mouth to argue further, but Sam cut him off with a look at Azazel. "I'm done now."

Over Dean's protests, thrashes, and screams, Azazel stepped forward and placed a hand on his forehead.

"Don't even try coming back here," he said with a smirk. "We won't be here."

The last thing Dean saw before he woke up in the motel room was the cold stare on his little brother's face. It was a stare that would haunt him for a long, long time, and sure enough, when he went back, they were gone.

"I'm not going to try again, Bobby," Dean told his new caretaker. "I can't. You don't know what he did, what he looked like…"

"Ain't sayin' you should, boy," Bobby said. "Always said your father's revenge journey for your mother was stupid. And that's all it'd be for you if you go after Sam again: revenge."

"I can't go after him again because I can't find him," Dean said, fixing Bobby with a stare that almost rivaled Sam's. "But if I ever see him again…I _will_ kill him."

**((I like reviews, js. :P))**


	4. Chapter 4

"Cas, you can't possibly still be thinking that the way out of this is to keep saying no to Michael!" Dean argued. "I mean, the demon army was bad enough, but now that Lucifer's risen? Nuh-uh. Not a chance. I gotta say yes."

Castiel looked at Dean with the serious blue eyes he knew so well. Cas had shown up when Dean was around twenty-eight, right after Sam had released the demon army to terrorize the earth. He had helped Dean to fight them back. Although, the demons hadn't started truly terrorizing until the final seal had broken and Lucifer had been released from his cell. And now there was war on Earth.

"I do not…think it would be wise for you to say yes to Michael," Castiel said carefully. "There are…things you do not know."

"Then how about you start telling me?" Dean said, exasperated. All he wanted to do was get it over with. Save the world once and for all. People would die, but people were already dying.

Cas hesitated.

"Go _on_, Cas," Dean said impatiently.

"I am not sure if I should," Castiel said. "I am fairly certain that it will sway your decision, and my superiors will not be grateful if, after hearing what I have to say, you change your current mindset back to saying no, and—"

"Cas!" Dean interrupted. "Just. Tell. Me."

Cas sighed. He did not like to say no to Dean. "You realize you will be fighting Lucifer, but you do not realize what form he has taken. The vessel he is in."

"What do you m—" Dean started to ask, but then it clicked. "Sam. It's Sam, isn't it? I'd be fighting Sam."

Castiel sighed again, then nodded his head once. "My superiors will not be pleased with me. But I could not let you go through with what I am sure would have been extremely difficult for you—"

"Yes," Dean interrupted.

"What?" Castiel asked with a blink.

"Yes," Dean repeated, then looked up at the ceiling and raised his voice. "I said _yes_!"

And then the room started to shake as it was filled with a blinding white light and deafening white noise.

* * *

After Sam had succeeded in murdering his fellow psychics, Azazel had given him the key to the gate, the gate that his army would come from. But before that, he had been visited in a dream by a little girl who called herself Lilith. She had told him that the army was not the goal, that the goal was to free Lucifer, because he could not truly be the general without Lucifer. She told him there was nothing Azazel had left to teach him, and that he should come with her. And then he woke up and spent the rest of the night pondering the dream (_vision?_), having long ago learned to keep them to himself.

He decided it was nothing, but the next day, when Azazel brought him to the Devil's Gate, he had handed him the Colt and said, "It's all up to you now, Sammy. Be my legacy. I have nothing left to teach you that you don't already know." And Sam had remembered the dream, remembered the child, remembered that he could go even farther, and without a moment's consideration, he raised the gun and blew the demon's brains out.

When Sam opened the gate, he could have sworn he saw his biological father—John Winchester—standing there, staring at him with sadness, but he brushed it off as an illusion. The child came to see him shortly after that, taught him about Lucifer, about the seals, about what he personally had to do, and the next few years had been spent breaking seals, and then there had been the final one.

"I have to…kill you?" Sam asked, unsure. He had spent several dozen nights over the past few years in Lilith's bed. She had assumed an adult form first so he would be more comfortable with it.

"_Yes_, Sam," she said, rolling her eyes. She was in a child's form again. It was her form of choice when she was not donating blood or sex to Sam. "I told you."

The ritual was set up. Lilith sat in the middle, waiting.

"And then I'll be the general," Sam said, just to make sure. "For real."

Lilith rolled her eyes again. "_Yes_."

Sam took a breath in through his nose, made his trademark bitchface, and then drove the knife they had snagged from an irritation named…Ruby? through her chest.

And then the room started to shake as it was filled with a blinding white light and deafening white noise. Sam closed his eyes and waited to become the general.

* * *

The battlefield, in the cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas, was empty. A cold wind blew across it as Michael and Lucifer entered from opposite sides. Somewhere in the distance, the shrill noise of an ambulance siren echoed through the streets.

There had been an awful lot of sirens recently.

"Hello, little brother," Michael said as he and Lucifer strode towards each other, and the part of Dean that was still conscious, that could still see and hear and feel what was going on, felt like he was saying it to Sam after God-only-knows how many years.

"Michael," Lucifer replied. And they exchanged their oh-so-witty banter, including Lucifer's pleas to resolve their conflict without a battle and Michael's firm "NO."

But while all of this was going on, Dean looked out through Michael's eyes and saw not the general of Hell's army, but the little brother he used to take care of and the little brother he had once caught fireflies with. The little brother who had thanked him for the best night ever. The little brother he still loved.

And Sam looked out through Lucifer's eyes and saw the older brother who had wanted so desperately to shield him from the harsh realities of the world. The older brother who had tried to save him and the older brother whose life he had saved. The older brother he still loved.

They couldn't speak while Michael and Lucifer were possessing them, but in that moment, they understood each other better than they had since Dean was ten and Sam was six and they had been catching fireflies in a trashy motel parking lot.

And then the battle began.


	5. Chapter 5

The battle was over quickly.

Relatively speaking.

The definition of "quick" varies. The people of Earth, or what was left of them, were grateful when the battle ended after ten long years. Heaven's angels, on the other hand, rejoiced for such a quick and easy victory. Michael pulled Lucifer out of Sam Winchester and hurled him back into Hell, leaving Lucifer's vessel crumpled on the ground.

Michael in Dean's body made a speech to the few remaining people of Earth, telling them how now that he had won, there would be paradise on Earth. As had been promised for the past decade, as Michael exited Dean's body, the world changed. The colors became brighter; the birds began to sing. All of a sudden, the entire world resembled the Disney version of _Snow White_.

And Dean Winchester was left standing on a stage as the world transformed into Eden. He blinked his eyes for the first time in a decade, swinging his arms back and forth, trying to get used to being in control of his own body again.

Then he blinked again as he remembered what he had been thinking about for the past ten years: not the angels, not the war, just one thing: his brother—Sam.

He stumbled down off the stage and raced on wobbly legs to the thankfully close spot where he—where _Michael_—had left Sam.

* * *

Sam didn't understand. How could this have happened to him? He had trained his whole life to be the general, been completely faithful and had always risen to the top, beaten everyone else and every odd.

"You were never meant to win," a gravelly voice said from beside him. Sam turned his head to see a dark-haired man in a dirty trenchcoat looking down at him with pitying blue eyes.

"What?" Sam spat.

"Michael was always the foretold victor," the man told him. "You were never meant to win. I am…sorry."

Just as Sam opened his mouth to respond, venom in his eyes, Dean crashed into the clearing. "Sam!"

"_You_," Sam hissed, giving his older brother such a look of pure hatred that it stopped him in his tracks, making it clear with just one word that the moment where they had understood each other was over, and could never happen again. Would never happen again.

"Dean," Castiel said. "It is good to see you."

"Yeah, Cas, you too," Dean said. He didn't remove his eyes from his little brother. "What's…?"

Castiel walked over to Dean, put his hand on his shoulder, and gently steered him a little ways out of Sam's hearing.

"Cas, what are we going to do?" Dean asked, his voice sounding hollow. He kept glancing over his shoulder at Sam, who was still glaring at them, but apparently unable to move.

"There are…only two options," Castiel replied. "Your brother as he currently is cannot survive in Eden. He is full of hate, an unchanging hate that cannot be changed no matter how the rest of the world does. He has been under the influence of Lucifer since he was five years old, Dean. That is a long time."

"Yeah, Cas, I know all that," Dean snapped. He still hated to be reminded of that, still believed it to be all his own fault. "So what are the options?"

"We could kill him," Castiel said bluntly. Upon seeing Dean's face pale, he added, "Or I could regress him back to when he was six years old. The last moment before he was corrupted. Body and mind. Now, I realize this is not ideal, but I believe that you may find it preferable to his death."

Before Castiel finished his option, Dean had his choice already made. A chance to have his brother back, to be able to fix the mess that he had caused, to be able to take care of his baby brother the way an older brother should, the way he always had before…

"Do it," he said. Cas nodded, not looking surprised, and went back to where Sam still lay crumpled on the ground, Dean right behind him. Sam raised his head to glare at them as they approached.

"This will not hurt," Castiel said as he placed two fingers on Sam's forehead. To Dean, he said, "Shield your eyes."

Dean closed his eyes. There was a blinding flash of light, and then when it had faded away, he heard soft sobbing and opened them quickly.

Castiel was gone, and where the adult Sam Winchester had been was a small boy, just six years old. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he was sobbing. Hardly daring to believe it, Dean bent down and placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Sammy?"

"Dean!" Sam gasped, sitting up. He stared at his brother like it had been decades since they'd last seen each other. "You, you got old—_Dean_!" He wrapped his arms around his brother's neck and buried his face in his shoulder, crying even harder. Dean patted his back awkwardly. It had been years since he'd had to take care of a child.

"It's okay, Sammy," he said. "I'm here."

"I knew you'd come for me, Dean," Sam said, his voice muffled by his brother's jacket. "I knew you'd come and get me."

Dean rocked his little brother back and forth, and as tears started falling from his own eyes, he said, "I'll always come and get you."


End file.
